Tillie Cohen Baderman

Rubenstein: We will be talking about old South Portland. Mrs. Baderman, could you tell me your name, your birth date, a little bit about yourself?
BADERMAN: I’m Tillie Baderman. I was born August 23, 1922, which means I’m 95 years old. I lived in South Portland almost all my life until I married Hy Baderman, and then we moved to Seattle, where I lived until my husband went into the service. Then I moved back to South Portland and lived with my parents. My mother took care of my son while I helped my father in his men’s furnishings store. I lived there until my husband got out of the service. We lived in Portland for a while, and then we moved back to Seattle. Ron was born in Seattle, and we lived there for a few years. I was so very lonesome. We moved back to Portland. Since then we’ve always lived in Portland. My husband was willing to move down here for me, and we did live here. Ron was born in Seattle, though, and the three of us moved down here and lived with my parents for a while until we bought our own home. My husband, like most of the young men then, worked for their families. My husband worked for my father.

Rubenstein: Let me ask you, which house did you grow up in? What was your home address?
BADERMAN: 2216 Southwest Second Avenue.

Rubenstein: You mentioned your father. He was Hymen Cohen. He was born in Russia. How did he happen to come to Portland?
BADERMAN: I have no idea. Listening to him, he came in a boxcar. He just got on a train somewhere back east and ended up in Portland, where he had several brothers.

Rubenstein: Do you know their names?
BADERMAN: I’m trying to think. No. One of them was murdered. He had a shop. He bought old tools and clothing and sold them in this shop. I was visiting my aunt, and we heard — in those days they had the newsboys [who] came out shouting, “News! News!” Or “Good news!” Or “Bad news!” Whatever it was. They said that a man was killed, Southwest First and I think it was Main Street. They had gotten him in the back. That was my father’s brother. I was with my aunt at the time. She said, “You’d better go home.” So I went back home, and we found out that they had murdered him. They tried to rob him or whatever. Then he had another brother who had a horse-drawn wagon, and he would peddle things as he drove around. That’s the only one that I remembered ever. Those two brothers were the only ones I remembered. 

My father had a men’s furnishings store, a haberdashery I guess it should have been called. He worked it by himself except having help once in a while until my brother Jerry, Jerome, got old enough to start working and helping him. Then my husband started working with him. While Hy was in the service, I didn’t work but I helped my father out. That was it. He sold pants for some of the customers he had come in. I took one look at them one day and said, “My God, you can’t give them those kind of pants.” He would just grab up some material and put it together. I said, “No, we can’t do that.” So I started doing his tailoring, too. Then when Hy got out of the service, we bought our own home and you know the address.

Ron: I know what you’re saying. I want you to understand that my grandfather’s store, that she’s referring to, had suits. He’s not working on Levi’s; he was working on suit pants. It’s my mother who said — she was a great seamstress, and she said, “My God, look how terrible. Let me do it.” So she regretfully became the seamstress, and she had to take in and do all the things that you do with suit pants and suit coats and so on, but not just pants. I just wanted to make sure. The name of that store, do you want that? It was the Columbia Woolen Mills Store, CWMS.
Rubenstein: Do you have any idea the year that your dad came to the United States? How old he was?
Ron: He was born in 1877. I hope it says it on there. He was in the 1898 Russian-Japanese War, and he came in that big giant surge of people. When internet became available, we went looking to find out if my grandmother, Yetta Donin…
Danish: Yetta Donin was your grandmother? I don’t mean the other Yetta Donin. There’s another Yetta Donin that was married . . .
BADERMAN: Yes, that was married to my cousin. Yetta was married to my cousin.

Ron: See, whatever story you have about my grandfather, she doesn’t know all that much, but her mother’s side I could spend from now until tomorrow talking to you about what we know. About five years ago, we got all of our adult relatives together at Howard Liebreich’s house before they got that new big house. We had incredible numbers of people, and we started doing a family tree on this big board. Believe me, they all know — Tillie knows the names and dates and marriages of all of the cousins. Yetta had five brothers and sisters, and we knew of them all. I visited them all except for one. I even visited the one in Los Angeles. So there’s a trove of things if you wanted to know about my grandmother’s family.
Rubenstein: [To BADERMAN] What was your maiden name?
Ron: You mean Yetta’s?
BADERMAN: My mother’s name was Yetta.

Ron: What was the last name?
BADERMAN: Danzker, the same as Irving’s.

Ron: Same as Darlene.
Danish: Diane Cooper was one of my best friends. There’s a connection between Donins and the Coopers.  
Rubenstein: So your mother’s name was Yetta Danzker.
BADERMAN: Yes. She came from Kiev, Russia, with her mother and her two children, which were my brother Irving and my sister Lenore.

Ron: That’s Howard’s mother.
BADERMAN: She came with those three. She did not read or write English, and she came all the way from Kiev. She came to New York, and her brother, Louis Katz . . .

Ron: Al Katz.
BADERMAN: I’m sorry. Al, okay.

Ron: Am I right? I don’t want to correct you, but . . .
BADERMAN: He sponsored them. They came all the way across from New York to Portland, and he sponsored them. While she was here, he had her meet my father, and they got married. I’ve got their marriage license. That’s about it. Then I was born after they got married.

Rubenstein: Where were they married?
BADERMAN: They married here.

Rubenstein: In a synagogue?
BADERMAN: I don’t know what that says.

Ron: By the way, your mother’s name was not Yetta on that marriage certificate.
BADERMAN: No. What was it on there?

Ron: Three letters. I can’t remember, but it was Y-something, the letter “Y” and maybe “T.”
BADERMAN: Do you want to get the marriage certificate?

Ron: I have it at my house. You gave it to me. I know where it is. It’s not lost, but I don’t have it here.
Danish: So she had two children, but she didn’t have a husband at that time.
BADERMAN: No, her husband had died. They had tried to come to America, but there was something wrong with his eyes, so he couldn’t go. It was after he passed away. Then my mother took her mother and her two children and came to America.

Rubenstein: She took your mother.
BADERMAN: Her mother.

Rubenstein: Her mother and her mother’s two children?
BADERMAN: No, my mother’s two children.

Rubenstein: Your mother was married in Russia. What year did she come to the United States?
BADERMAN: I don’t remember. Lee was maybe six years old.

Ron: How many years older than you is Lee? More than six.
BADERMAN: Yes, more than six.

Ron: I think all of our family on both sides, the ones in Seattle and the ones here, all came between 1900 and 1910. That I can virtually guarantee. I’m not sure about whether it’s ’08, ’07, ’09, but by 1910 they were here. I was telling you that I went through, and we found records of either your father on Ellis Island or your mother, one of the two.
BADERMAN: My mother, it would have been.

Ron: All right then. We found something to do with Yetta, but it wasn’t of any interest. It was just maybe a name or something. Does the museum have a lot of stuff on Ellis Island people?
Rubenstein: Not a lot of records.
Ron: It wasn’t easy.
BADERMAN: No, it wasn’t. Howard tried to find it.

Ron: And I tried it, too.
BADERMAN: And he couldn’t find it. Sorry, I don’t know.

Ron: No, you’re okay. You’re doing a good job.
Rubenstein: Your mother’s gravestone says she was born in 1890, so if she came between 1900 and 1910 she would have been . . .
Ron: When did my grandfather’s — did it say 1877?
Rubenstein: I think it says 1876, 1877.
Ron: Did you think that your father was that much older than your mother?
BADERMAN: Yes.

Ron: You did. I know you called him the “old man,” but that’s when you were more adult.
BADERMAN: Yes, he was. He was older.

Ron: He died in ’72. He was 94, 95. My father’s father died at 101. She’s 95. I’d better make preparations to be here for a long time.
Rubenstein: So your mother, Yetta, was Yetta Danzker. Was that her married name?
BADERMAN: Yes. It had to be because that’s what my brother Irving’s name is, Irving Danzker.

Ron: You just reminded me. I did read that your mother’s marriage certificate said “Donin.” It said three letters, whatever it was, and “Donin.” 
BADERMAN: Her name was Donin?

Ron: That’s what it is on the marriage certificate. I thought that was interesting.
Rubenstein: Do you know what town she came from?
Ron: You know the town.
BADERMAN: My mother’s? Kiev.

Rubenstein: There are some Donins here in town. Are they relatives?
BADERMAN: Yes. Mrs. Donin, Rose Donin, was my mother’s sister. Her children were Jack, Harold, Leonard, and Sonya. Did you know them?

Danish: Sonya was my cousin, and I knew Leonard. Leonard almost married my mom.
BADERMAN: Almost?

Ron: Leonard was wonderful.
BADERMAN: She was so beautiful.

Ron: Leonard isn’t “Ike,” is he?
BADERMAN: Leonard is “Ike.”

Ron: Every member of her mother’s family, every member — not the women, though, just men — had nicknames. “Scuzzy” and “Scoozy” and buh, buh, buh. Unbelievable names. They came from nowhere. They weren’t like “Fatty” or “Red.”
Danish: Sometimes I think that those may have come from South Portland, and the women were more respected, so they . . .
Ron: I think so.
BADERMAN: No, but except for me. Out of all our relations, of the Donins and the Katzes and all of us, the women didn’t have a nickname but me. I was only known as “Tootsie,” all the time was Tootsie. And even now when — well, most of mine are gone, but if I would call and say, “Tillie.” “Who?” “Tootsie.” “Oh, Tootsie! How are you?” I was the only one that was called Tootsie, had the nickname. I was the youngest — no, the boys were younger. Now, what else can I tell you?

Rubenstein: I’m interested, how did it happen that you got married at Kesser Israel? Is that the synagogue that your family went to? What was it like when you were a little kid?
BADERMAN: It was beautiful. It was wonderful. You’ve been to Kesser Israel. You know where it was, and you know where the bima was in the center. I came down. Isn’t there a picture of . . .?

Danish: No, just you.
BADERMAN: Oh, where is it? You can’t even see it. You walked up the aisle, and Hy — his brother was his best man, and my sister was my matron. I had a very, very dear friend in Seattle who was my maid of honor. I came down from upstairs, which was terrible. We had to go up, do you remember? If the women wanted to use the bathroom, it was up to the attic. I came down, all the way down, and Rabbi Fain married us.

Danish: But you were able to walk through the men’s section to get to the bima. Were you in the central bima when you got married?
BADERMAN: No, we got married up above there. And Rabbi Fain was there. He was the one that married us.

Ron: Excuse me for a second. Who was the “rev” rabbi?
BADERMAN: [Roger Rough?]. He was the [inaudible word].

Ron: Why would Fain be marrying you? He was the First Street rabbi.
BADERMAN: Because Kesser Israel did not have a rabbi.

Ron: I didn’t know that.
Rubenstein: He served all the rabbis.
BADERMAN: Rabbi Fain officiated at all the weddings.

Ron: I did not know that.
Danish: I didn’t know it either.
Ron: I did not know that because I remember going — I remember that at Kesser Israel Bruce Ritchie and I used to hang out together. While people were praying we were upstairs in the furthest — they had attics behind attics, and we were fooling around. I remember my grandfather up there with the Mr. Spock fingers and all that stuff.
BADERMAN: Because he was a kohen.

Ron: I had no idea that there wasn’t a rabbi there. They had services every Friday, every Saturday, didn’t you?
BADERMAN: They had the services, yes.

Ron: Who would officiate?
BADERMAN: Mr. — what as her name? She was so active for so long.

Danish: Reinhardt. Gussie Kirshner.
BADERMAN: Kirshner. Yes, Gussie. Mr. Kirshner ran it, and he would always [stamping her foot and saying some Yiddish words], “it should be quiet.” No, we didn’t have a rabbi.

Ron: Because you couldn’t afford to pay one?
BADERMAN: And the women did the same cooking as we did at Shaarie Torah. I remember that their kitchen was there, and my mother was always working and she was always doing the cooking there. She would bring us. We would sleep on the benches, and she would work all night getting ready for whatever dinner, or whatever they were making there. I can remember doing that. It was wonderful.

Rubenstein: And your mother was a good cook.
BADERMAN: Oh, she was wonderful. But everything had to be well done, which my kids hated because I did the same thing. And to this day, everything has to be well done. And Zidell — oh, what was her name? Jay’s mother?

Danish: Jay’s mother. Min.
BADERMAN: No, it wasn’t Min at that time.

Ron: Rose.
BADERMAN: Yes. They lived right across the street. And up the corner, the Gilberts, the Cottels at the time, and then Berlants, and then there was the library. You know where all that is. Then across the street was the Neighborhood House that we went to Hebrew school there; they made us go in through the basement, and we had to walk up three floors to get up there. But we were able to use Neighborhood House, and that cost one dollar a year.

Rubenstein: To go to the Hebrew school?
BADERMAN: No, the Hebrew school was separate of the Neighborhood House. We were just using the Neighborhood House.

Danish: So the girls hung out there to see the boys, or what? What did the girls do?
BADERMAN: It was two different groups. There were those that went to Shattuck School that were up above, and then there were us who really lived in South Portland, and we went to Failing. It was very, very different. Shattuck had mostly all white. We didn’t. At Failing School we had Blacks, and we got along very well, except one I didn’t get along with. I had a big fight with her. I remember across the street was an empty — the whole block was empty. We had to walk up the dirt to get there. We got up to the top, and this girl and I had a fight, and I mean a real fight. We were down on the ground. I can remember it so well. She called me something when she walked away, and I called her something when I walked that way. It was quite a fight. 

Ketel’s was across the street. You’ve already heard what that is. Across from Ketel’s was Geller’s grocery, and next to Geller’s was the barbershop. Going the other way, across from Ketel’s, where we used to go on the way to Hebrew school. You know Dan Davis? You remember his first wife, Lorraine? Lorraine and I were very, very close. They used to call us Peter and Paul. They would pick us up coming from up Broadway, and they’d come down to Second Street to pick me up to go to Hebrew school, and we would take one piece of gum, one piece of gum for a penny. We went to Ketel’s, and he would let us take one piece of gum out of his package for a penny, and Lorraine and I would share it. Then we would go on the way up to Hebrew school. We’d have Hebrew school, and then they would take me back down again because we walked by Sullivan’s Gulch, and that was pretty dark, so they walked me back home again, and then they went back up.

Ron: What did you call the gulch? Did you say Sullivan?
Danish: Sullivan’s was on the other side.
Ron: That’s by Benson High School, Sullivan’s.
Danish: What was the name where Jake died, the gulch?
BADERMAN: Was that where Duniway was?

Ron: I don’t know what gulch that was called, where Duniway was.
Rubenstein: It’s the Marquam Gulch.
Ron: That’s why everything is Marquam. You know that Duniway was 20 feet lower.
BADERMAN: Then Mann, like I said, Robert Mann, his parents — on the corner was Mink’s grocery store, and then next to him were the Manns. Then going across the street, there was also, I think Jerry Roth’s father had — I think in those days it was a beer parlor he had there. Do you remember that?

Rubenstein: No.
BADERMAN: Do you remember that? Have you heard that?

Rubenstein: No. I grew up on Second and Meade; I was the other way.
BADERMAN: Then you were up near the Kornbergs.

Rubenstein: Yes, a block away from the Kornbergs. They were at 2800; we were 2700.
Ron: And between your two houses there was that bottling company. She would send me to go get seltzer and would give me a penny or two. I’d carry those bottles that they’d spray into people’s faces. I’d carry that down for seltzer. I never could figure out what it was for.
BADERMAN: I was telling Ron the only place in Portland, or other places I’ve ever heard of, where an Italian man and a Jewish man had a delicatessen together. Calistro and Halperin, they were the only ones. Across the street from there was Mosler Bakery. Across from Mosler Bakery going down this way — this side was all broken down and empty — but across from there was the gentile meat market. Next to them was [Grill’s?] meat market. If they ever had the chickens that weren’t kosher, they would give them to the next one there. Then there was a lot of empty spaces. You went across the street, and then there was — it was a block to Kesser Israel. The Steinbergs lived on the east side of the street, and Zidells lived on the right side.

Rubenstein: The Steinbergs are my family.
BADERMAN: Wasn’t that what Mrs. Zidell’s name was, Steinberg?

Rubenstein: She was a Weinstein. Frimet Weinstein.
BADERMAN: I remember her. She cooked with my mother.

Rubenstein: She was Rose’s mother. Frimet and my grandmother, Sura Steinberg, were sisters.
BADERMAN: Where was Nina Weinstein?

Rubenstein: On the Jake Weinstein side. She was related to Rose Zidell’s father’s side of the family, so I think that’s where that came from.
BADERMAN: Then farther up, the Berlants lived. And then, of course, on Gibbs Street, which was farther up, Harris lived there, and Schnitzer lived there, and Hecht lived there, who just passed away, Jack Hecht. And Mr. Harris. He had a kind of grocery store. Every — oh, God, when do we give the candy to the kids?

Rubenstein: Either Purim or Simchas Torah. On Simchas Torah I remember getting the candy bars.
BADERMAN: Okay, Simchas Torah. He always came with a big box of candy that must have been five years old, but he brought it to the women at shul and they thought it was wonderful. He always brought them this great big box of candy. I remember that. We would stand around and watch him. That was Gibbs Street. There was an empty lot right next to it. There was a woman and a man that lived in the first house there. She was white; he was Black. I remember, that was the first ones. Across the street from where I lived was the Saint Lawrence Church. The priests were on Second Street, and the nuns were on Third Street. Right next to them, the Weinsteins lived, Irene and Jeanette and their brother Jack. And down the corner from there was the dairy. You wouldn’t remember any of that, but I do. The tar trucks would drive by, and we would always take tar out of there to chew. It was wonderful! Black as black licorice.

Ron: Instead of chewing gum. Chewing gum cost them a penny, so they would take asphalt.
BADERMAN: Asphalt. We’d break off chunks of the tar. It was chewy, and it was good. We didn’t know any better. It was wonderful.

Danish: Would you consider your childhood warm and loving and carefree?
BADERMAN: Yes. 

Danish: Tell us about when the Depression hit South Portland.
BADERMAN: I don’t remember it hitting us at all. It didn’t seem to bother us. We had plenty to eat. We went to school, we went to Hebrew school, we played kick-the-can, and what was it? Somebody send me over. “Joey, Joey, send over Tillie.” We played that game.

Ron: I think what’s important is they didn’t have a lot . . .
BADERMAN: Red Robin, Red Robin.

Ron: You guys didn’t have more than you needed before the Depression, and during the Depression your father worked and other fathers worked, and you just maintained enough to live. There’s only a few of the Zidells and Schnitzers. Most of the people did not lose their jobs because they were not working in factories. They had things that they were selling, and people still needed work clothes and work shoes and so on. My father comes from Seattle and has no memory of a depression whatsoever, and he’s the same age virtually. He said it did not have the slightest effect on our family because his father — was he a pawnbroker then? They had a pawn shop, and they did the same kind of business they did in 1917 as 1927. So it didn’t have any effect on him, thank God.
BADERMAN: In Seattle, my father had a pawn shop. He lived right next door. His shop was next door to a beer parlor. They had one gentleman that would always come in and borrow 25 cents on his teeth, on his bridge. It would be put in a separate bag and put away, and 25 cents, and then he ran next door and bought a glass of beer for the 25 cents. He’d wait a little while, and then I think he paid back 26 cents, so that my father-in-law made a penny. But he was so very nice when I was working with him. We were living in Seattle then, and I would walk down Yesler — do you know Seattle? I would walk down Yesler to get to the shop, and this same man was in there. I was pregnant at the time, and he wouldn’t look at me, but he said to me, “Now remember, when you feel like you have some pains, find a round table and just walk around and around and around it.” This was the man with the bridge. He was so nice. I got along with all of them, but in Seattle they never, never seemed to hurt. We weren’t bothered by it at all, not any of them, no.

Danish: I was always told that during the Depression in South Portland, the Jewish community became a society where if one person knew another person needed something, in small ways they always would take care of each other.
Ron: Ask her about the society.
BADERMAN: Oh, yes. The free loan society? Yes, if you didn’t have — if my mother needed something, she would go in. It was Mrs. Livoff, do you remember? She was in charge of it. My mother would say, “I need a quarter” or “I need 50 cents.” No problem. She gave it to my mother, and my mother would go get whatever extra she needed. Then, of course, she paid it back, but no interest. You just paid back your quarter or your 50 cents, whatever it was.

Rubenstein: Do you remember how she spelled her name?
BADERMAN: Livoff [spells out].

Rubenstein: I wanted to go back to your wedding. You were married June 22nd, 1941.
BADERMAN: ’42.

Ron: No, you were not married June 22.
BADERMAN: No, it was June 6.

Ron: I’m sorry, that’s what we said before. She was married on the 6th and the 7th. She was married in Vancouver on the 6th, and then the following day on Sunday — yes, I always wondered if they slept together that night.
BADERMAN: No. As a matter of fact, we didn’t. Your father slept with Bernie, with his cousin. That Saturday night we went to Jantzen Beach. He and his cousin, who was enormous, rode on the whirligig, and he was deathly sick. He couldn’t have slept with me if he wanted to, he was so sick [laughter]! He got very sick.

Ron: I’ve never heard that. In 75 years I have never heard that story.
BADERMAN: A lot of little things I keep bringing up to you that I remember once . . .

Rubenstein: We talked about your two weddings before we started recording, so could you tell us the story again about why you were married twice?
BADERMAN: The wedding was set for June 6. We found out that Hy was not old enough. He wasn’t 18 yet, so he could not get his license here; he had to get them up in Seattle. So we went back to Seattle, and they could not find any record of his being born. Finally, they went to Olympia, the capital, and found out that he was born at home and they hadn’t recorded it yet. So it was recorded then. Why he had to get his license there was because he was not old enough. He wasn’t 18 yet, and he had to get his mother’s permission and signature [laughs]. So Rabbi Geller had called my mother and said that he couldn’t marry us because it was a Washington license. He suggested, my mother said,“Oy vey ist mir! What am I going to do? The wedding’s all ready.” He said, “Have them go to Vancouver on Saturday and have them get married by the justice of the peace, and I will do the religious ceremony on Sunday.” So that’s what we did. We went to Vancouver, and my sister and his sister were our witnesses, and we got married. We got there at five minutes to 12:00 PM, and he was getting ready to close. He said he’d open for us, and he did. He married us, and he gave me a little rolling pin, which I still have. I’ve never had to use it.

Ron: Who was he? Who gave you that?
BADERMAN: The justice of the peace. 

Ron: It just struck me, listening to your story for the first time, if your husband and his cousin were going to go out and play at Jantzen Beach . . .
BADERMAN: Saturday night.

Ron: Why in the world didn’t you just wait until Sunday to get married?
BADERMAN: Because that was the religious ceremony.

Ron: But you didn’t have a big party at your . . .
BADERMAN: Yes, we did.

Ron: You had a party before your wedding?
BADERMAN: No, we had a party after the wedding in the downstairs, I told you, where my mother — I remember her making potato salad in one of those stone [crocks] that you used to do pickles in. I remember her doing that. We had a very big party downstairs. You weren’t there!

Ron: That’s after your second marriage, or first?
BADERMAN: Nothing happened with the first. We were just married by the justice of the peace.

Ron: Now stop a second. 
BADERMAN: I’m listening.

Ron: Nothing happened. You didn’t sleep with this guy.
BADERMAN: No.

Ron: You didn’t go away for a weekend.
BADERMAN: We did not do anything.

Ron: So why did you bother getting married in Washington, in Vancouver?
Rubenstein: Because he wasn’t old enough.
BADERMAN: We had to get married to use the license. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been married legally. We had to be married legally on the Washington license.

Ron: You had to be married in Washington so that you could be married illegally in Oregon?
BADERMAN: No.

Ron: He was still 17.
BADERMAN: I know, but Rabbi Fain — you have to talk to him. He said that would be . . .

Ron: I’ll talk to his granddaughter.
BADERMAN: He said that would be just fine. He told my mother — she was so worried, “What am I going to do?” The wedding was taking place on Sunday. He said, “Go to Washington and let them get married by the justice of the peace. That makes his license legal.” Then he said, “I will do the Jewish one on Sunday to make the Jewish ceremony legal.”

Ron: Oh. I wonder if that has to do with that article about saying the “Seattle marriage.” Okay. Thank you.
Danish: He was underage, so they had to go to Seattle so his mother could sign because he was underage.
Ron: They didn’t go to Seattle. They just went from Portland across the bridge.
Danish: No, they went to Seattle first to get her signature. Then they went to Vancouver to get married.
Ron: She was down here in Portland at your wedding.
BADERMAN: Yes, she was at the wedding.

Ron: Of course. That story doesn’t — that’s why I wanted to know.
Danish: Whatever it is, you’re both here, you’re both well, thank God. Your parents were married.
BADERMAN: Yes, it’s legal.

Ron: Maybe.
Danish: And in a shul, too.
BADERMAN: It was just the date, because your father was too young. They said, “What are you getting married for? What for?”

Ron: Especially when you run off to Jantzen Beach. I never heard that.
BADERMAN: Yes, we all went to Jantzen Beach.

Ron: I thought you were going to talk about you went to the dance parlor there, the big ballroom.
BADERMAN: No, we didn’t go to that one. I went with my best maid, my friend. You didn’t know her, either. Evelyn Hoffman from Seattle. We were together and he was with his cousin, and his cousin said let’s go on the whirligig or whatever. They did, and your father got very, very sick.

Ron: That’s why I don’t go on them, either.
BADERMAN: That’s why he doesn’t go on the other thing. So anyway . . .

Rubenstein: When you had the ceremony at Kesser, you mentioned that you came in and were married on the center bima with Rabbi Fain. Wait, no, up on the main bima in front of the . . .
BADERMAN: Not in the middle.

Rubenstein: Not in the middle; up on top. And that you had a party in the social hall. Which families were there? Who were you close to?
BADERMAN: All of my family, all of the Katzes and all of the Donins, and my husband’s family, his aunt. He had only two aunts up there. They came down. Their whole family came. We were married, and then we left. We drove back. I know I took off my wedding dress, and we drove up . . .

Ron: Is that when you went to Harrison Hot Springs?
BADERMAN: No, not then. That night we went to one of the hotels in Seattle, and the next day, Monday, we drove up to Harrison Hot Springs.

Ron: Something didn’t fit there. You got married at Kesser Israel in Portland.
BADERMAN: And we drove all the way up to Seattle.

Ron: In your wedding dress?
BADERMAN: No. You didn’t hear me. I said we stopped and that I changed.

Rubenstein: Where did you get your wedding dress?
BADERMAN: Do you really want me to tell you? I got my wedding dress at Kress’s, and I made my veil.

Ron: That’s the dress in that picture, isn’t it? 
BADERMAN: Yes. It was very pretty. It was white; it was very pretty. My father wouldn’t buy me a wedding gown, so my mother saved up some of the money and went to Kress’s. I think it cost 50 cents. Like I said, I made my own veil. And I got the prettiest headband. It had white flowers on it. I don’t think we had plastic in those days, way back then.

Ron: No, not until World War II.
BADERMAN: So I made that. I was short, and Hy was very tall. I first saw him — they had the AZAs and BBGs. Portland and Seattle always had their conventions either at one place or at the other place, or up in Vancouver. I hadn’t met him then, but we were in the elevator together. We always stayed at people’s homes. He happened to be staying next door. Sam Singer was there; that’s where he lived. Hy was in the elevator in front of me, and I said, “Oh, my God. Look at this tall guy.” He was six foot three.

Ron: There’s his picture, by the way.
BADERMAN: So I looked and I said, “Gee, that’s a tall guy. My God!” And I never saw him anymore after that. That night at the dance he didn’t dance with me, he didn’t talk to me. The next day my sister came. She was sitting in the kitchen, and she said, “There’s somebody at the door, and he stuttered. He’s asking for ‘Ti-ti-ti-ti-Tillie.’” I said, “I don’t know any guy like that.” I went out, and that was Hy. That was how we met. We got together. He kept writing to me or he kept coming down. When he had to leave on the train, he stood to the last minute and he ran after to get back onto the train. That’s why we were married for 72 years. That was a real love affair.

Danish: A love story.
BADERMAN: Really, really, really. As a matter of fact, the day that we were getting married, the Sunday, my father went to him and said, “Don’t let her be the boss of you. Don’t let her tell you anything.” Hy said, “Okay.” And every time if we had a kind of an argument or I’d say something to him, he said, “You want to argue? There’s a cupboard over there. Go argue with the cupboard.” He never argued with me. And Ron can say that. He never, never did.

Rubenstein: Were you older than he was?
BADERMAN: Than Hy? No, I was two years younger.

Rubenstein: So you were 15?
BADERMAN: Sixteen. He was almost 18.

Ron: What did you just tell her?
BADERMAN: I told her that I was — I don’t know, Ron. You’re getting me mixed up.

Ron: I don’t mean to. You just said that you were 16.
BADERMAN: Your father was two years older than me.

Ron: Yes, I know.
BADERMAN: Okay, so he was 18 and I was 16.

Ron: When you got married?
BADERMAN: Yes, that’s why we had all that trouble. No, I was 18. We waited.

Ron: Thank you.
BADERMAN: Yes, we waited.

Ron: I know you were 18.
BADERMAN: Yes, we waited before we . . .

Ron: I’m 20 years younger than she is, so they waited a couple of months or whatever.
BADERMAN: He’s making me crazy.

Ron: What am I asking?
BADERMAN: I’m really not, and I’m not stupid. Do you go through all of this all the time?

Danish: No, because I would give him a [Yiddish word, perhaps for “slap”?] in punim [in the face]! My kids.
BADERMAN: No, I would never do that.

Rubenstein: I wanted to go back to Kesser Israel. Who were the people? Besides Mr. Kirshner, who were the . . .
BADERMAN: Mr. Harris was a big man. Mr. Kornberg was a big man. Mr. Berlant. We would always call him — Norm Berlant, who is living at the home, Norm Berlant’s father. It was like the shochet [kosher butcher], but it wasn’t the shochet. It was the shammes [caretaker of the synagogue].

Rubenstein: Oh, the shammes.
BADERMAN: Yes, he was the shammes. He was wonderful. Out at the cemetery, it was Mr. [Glumps?] when we were there just before Rosh Hashanah. We wanted him to say mi shebeirach [prayer for healing — but she probably means kaddish, prayer for the dead] at my parents’, and he said, “No, I’m too busy. I can’t do it.” We said, “Okay.” So we walked over to Kesser from Shaarie Torah, and Mr. Berlant was there. He said, “Why are you asking him to say it? You knew your parents. Here is the book. Say it yourself.” And after that we always brought our own book, and I always did the prayers before the holiday. But Mr. Berlant was wonderful. He was the shammes. Mr. Gilbert — well, he was [Gottel?] before they changed to Gilbert. I don’t remember — oh, Mr. Steinberg. He was president of the shul at the time.

Danish: Harry Steinberg?
Rubenstein: No.
BADERMAN: Mr. Steinberg.
Rubenstein: Lauren Steinberg’s father?
BADERMAN: I wouldn’t know. I just know there was a Mr. Steinberg and Mr. Kirshner and Mr. Harris and Mr. Berlant. Those were the ones that I — Kornberg — that I remember. I didn’t go there much. We went to Hebrew school at the Neighborhood House.

Rubenstein: Now you and your husband were both very involved in Shaarie Torah. So when did you start moving from Kesser to Shaarie Torah?
BADERMAN: We belonged first to Ahavai Sholom. When my daughter passed away, Rabbi Stampfer was very bad to us, and so — no, Sharon was married at Ahavai Sholom . . .

Ron: Neveh Shalom.
BADERMAN: No, it was Ahavai Sholom. For some reason her friends all belonged to Shaarie Torah, so she moved to Shaarie Torah. Then we did, too. Because Rabbi Stampfer never went to see Sharon when she was in the hospital. Lisl and Rabbi Geller were with us every minute of the time, every surgery that she had. They never left us. They were with us for the whole time. Lisl always used to bring me sandwiches. She always said, “You’re not eating enough. You don’t have enough.” But they never left our side, with every one of them. She had many surgeries, and they were with us every minute of the time.

Ron: This did not occur until 1994, 1993. I grew up in Neveh Shalom, or Ahavai Sholom, because we used to attend Neveh Zedek. Were you members of Neveh Zedek?
BADERMAN: No.

Ron: Because we attended.
BADERMAN: They had a lot of parties and things at Neveh Zedek.

Ron: There was a lot of mixture. There wasn’t this “ooh” and “ooh” and “ooh.” It was just — I remember as a teenage person in the ’50s, on a holiday we would get in a car and we would go and see our buddies at all of the places.
BADERMAN: Or walk.

Ron: We’d never walk. I know that you guys . . .
Danish: I walked.
BADERMAN: I did, too. We went from shul to shul for candy.

Danish: One was on Sixth Street, one was on First Street, one was on 13th Street. How good was it?
BADERMAN: Yes, we did that.

Rubenstein: So your father was at Kesser Israel, both your parents were there. Did they stay there through their lives?
BADERMAN: Yes.

Rubenstein: Did you and Hy ever join Kesser, or go to Kesser?
BADERMAN: No. I think my parents were gone when we were at Shaarie Torah.

Ron: You did not want to be Orthodox. You wanted to be Conservative.
BADERMAN: Yes. Sharon had joined Shaarie Torah, so we joined then, too, and we were there until three years ago, I guess it was, when I stopped going.

Rubenstein: Where was your father’s store, Columbia Woolen Mills Store?
BADERMAN: It first started on First and Salmon, and then he moved up to a larger place on First and Madison Southwest.

Ron: And then?
BADERMAN: Then he moved up to Southwest Third and Madison.

Ron: You didn’t get mad at me just then, did you?
BADERMAN: No. When they’re gone, I’ll pinch you.

Rubenstein: What happened to it after he passed away?
BADERMAN: After my father passed away? My brother and my husband kept the business until they decided that was no place to be anymore, Southwest. Out of town wasn’t a place to be, so they sold out.

Ron: Their store was across the street from the Lownsdale Square. There’s two parts. One is the women’s square, and then there’s that deer or antelope or something in the middle, and then there’s another one.
BADERMAN: That’s on Main Street.

Ron: His store was on the corner right across the street from that park.

Rubenstein: Those are all the questions I have for right now, so I will thank you.
BADERMAN: I don’t think I helped you too much.

Rubenstein: You did very much.